//------------------------------// // 3 - In The Forest // Story: Entropy // by PseudoBob Delightus //------------------------------// Chapter 3 In The Forest I stood uneasily in the forest, leaning on a sturdy stick-cane that dug into the mulch floor. I had to keep the weight off of my injured leg with the fallen branch, and fallen branches weren't uncommon in the immediate area. Leafed and Pine trees behind me looked a lot like any forest I've been in, except slightly darker. There was standard plant material on the ground and standard noise in the background. As I looked forward, I knew why the same could not be said for what was ahead of me. There were wood chips, bark slivers, ripped boughs, and entire uprooted trees lying in a blast cone that came outwards from a pine tree. The tree itself was showing a single, three-clawed scar that matched my head height, and was about a foot wide. Almost all of the needles on the closest side of the tree were missing, scattered, instead, on the ground and freaking in my shirt they get everywhere. I shook them out, then pulled the collar of my sweater higher, covering the ring of raw skin where the metal collar had rubbed against my neck. I remembered what happened there. I had the courtesy of meeting a monster hybrid - which I then believed was the 'manticore' mentioned previously - as well as a small group of equine aliens that were moving towards a city. I considered the situation, and I just didn't have the capabilities to fight them. I couldn't outrun them, either - but it seemed the forest I was in deterred them slightly. Enough for me to get ahead of them, at least. I wanted to know where I was and why there were suddenly aliens, but I had no way to sate the curiosity and just decided to ignore it. If I went to higher ground I could probably find another civilized place to actually tell people about it, to warn them, to get help, and then - I added as an afterthought - find my way back home. The concept of getting back home seemed insubstantial when considered against stopping a potential alien invasion. I tried and failed to control my anxiety. I looked back, one last time, at the path I had followed to get back to the tree. It was two unbroken lines, horse tracks in between, and a few feathers near a scuffled area in front of the main tree where branches and leaves had been thrown about. I had picked up a few of the yellow and aqua-blue curiosities and put them in my pocket for, if anything, proof that I had encountered something strange in the forest. Then I turned left and started down the path to where I woke up. There was a large hole in a line of several smaller trees. Said line separated the forest section I was in from what looked like a field with a large path tracked through it. That was where I had jumped into the fiasco with the manticore, it seemed, and I stepped through it and made my way into the field. I avoided the hook-covered burs that wanted to attach to my clothes and walked silently down the breezy grass field. Mentally berating myself, I itched at my neck, just above the raw skin under the collar. The sooner I could control myself about it, the better, I thought - then corrected myself, the sooner I can get it off of me. I passed the next forest threshold and was about to continue on in the same direction when I noticed something peculiar. On an extremely dark and dead tree, reaching into the air with warped boughs, was a tribal mask that reminded me of a show on Discovery channel; it was a skull-like thing carved from what looked like layers of bark and had old, weathered blue pigments in eye-streak patterns. Below it, however, was the really strange part. Under the mask, at the base of the dead tree, was a large patch of glowing blue flowers. It seemed like all the undergrowth around them had withered away, leaving only an overwhelming cover of azure. I looked back to the mask and made the connection; I would stay away from that. I turned away, continuing down the path, keeping an open eye for the blue flowers. I saw another patch not meters away, and shook my head, saying, "weird." Then I stopped walking. I heard myself talking, and I could hear ambient noises of birds and wind afterwards. I didn't go deaf. I was finally able to speak properly, so I did what anyone would have done in my situation: I laughed and cheered. I had regained the ability to communicate and felt relief from a sense of restriction that I didn't know was actually there. There were echoes of my yelling coming back to me from what I thought might have been the west. That corresponded to the direction of another echo I had heard earlier - though I might have just been filling in details - and a mountain that I remembered seeing from near the end of my encounter with the horses. My first thought was about how I could see the tip of a mountain above the canopy in that direction, and it didn't look too hard to get to. The next thought I had was punctuated by female voices, off in the distance, in the general area that I was trying to get away from; something must have heard my wild cheering. I turned to the right and continued along the path to where I woke up the first time, not pausing to confirm the source of the voices or wonder any further about the blue flowers that I dared not approach. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - There was an empty backpack, a fleece toque, winter gloves, combat boots, a digital watch and a glasses case, all inside or strewn around a destroyed, rotten tree. I didn't think they had any real significance to me, but - there they were. I strained to listen for any sign of pursuit, and when I heard some faint voices again I shoved everything in my pack and turned back, moving towards them. I had a plan. It was a pretty awful strategy at face value, but I didn't spend 18 years in the army to learn about making beds and collecting bottle caps. Well, I thought, maybe the former, but that wasn't the only thing, and learned reasoning was an important skill. There was a clear objective, an LZ, an approaching enemy and a probable path to follow. I would have to make it half-way back to the voices before I encountered the river - discovered while running back from where the horses had me - that was likely to travel all the way up to the mountain and lead me to a lookout point, and I would also have to lose my tail along the way without getting myself lost in the forest. It was hard enough without a broken leg, but at least I found the means to create a rudimentary splint - which I considered taking off based on how it only served to make my walking slower and noisier. I almost did, too, as I had not had the most pleasant of medical experiences in the past days, but I immediately reset it when I felt my bones shift in my leg. It was not the time for playing around with my bones, so I forced myself and made good time across the worn path without too much pain. Before long, I had gone far enough in the right direction to hear the constant trickling of the small river. My leg was aching, but I was still up to the task of scaling a mountain if it meant the mystery of the aliens, and my being here, would be solved when I actually made it up there. I thought it would happen, honestly. Voices formed in the direction I was heading in, confirming part one of my plan. I turned right to go up the river. The voices were louder that time, and I managed to make some sense of a few sentences as well as recognize who was talking. There were two or three discussions, but I only made out one of them. "... should go up this way if we want to find him!" spoke the voice I believed was from Twilight. "Uhh, Twilight..." began Applejack with her accent, "You sure we should be going towards the thing that tried to kill us and completely-" "He didn't try to kill us! Stop saying that..." "Fine. The thing that attacked Fluttershy..." a pause, "Almost made me an' Dash go deaf, completely tore a fence post from the ground and... uhh..." The voice paused again, like it was reciting a list. "Despite all that, I saw him with my own two eyes! He's intelligent, he can count - hey, he even understands-" "Magic stuff!" Applejack shouted. The other discussions seemed to die down. "What? I didn't see a horn on him, I don't think he can understand that." "No, no, no. When you tried to free it from the fence, I don't think you wanted to do... whatever it was that happened, right?" Applejack finished. I had to agree with it in those regards, but Twilight kept arguing. "That was a fluke, OK? Unicorn magic just doesn't stop working for no reason. Applejack." I noticed the sudden absence of a noise I hadn't even noticed before; the two had stopped walking. I, on the other hand, almost hit a tree when I stopped paying attention to where I was going. I stopped so I could hear the rest of the conversation, and prevent a broken nose. "I get that you think this creature is dangerous," Twilight started again. "None of us know what he is. Hey, we're all a little scared and that's fine-" "Why would I be scared of it?" 'Applejack' interrupted, "I just think it's not too safe to be wandering the Everfree forest on a wild goose chase for something nopony's even seen before." "And I'm there with you, but listen to yourself. Nopony has seen anything like him, have they? Yet he's intelligent enough to communicate with a full understanding of equestrian, wears clothes, and can count - do you know how important a discovery that is?" "Now look here Twi, I..." Applejack stumbled for words. I could have yelled back and told them not to follow me, that I agreed with her, but that was flawed; they didn't know that I could talk. At best it would convince Twilight to go along by herself on pure curiosity, without Applejack, and at worst it would win her side of the argument and convince the both of them to go. I decided to hold off on weighing my options until the two finished. "Fine," Applejack continued. "I don't trust that thing worth a hill o' beans, but I trust you. I'll go out here today. Just, be more careful this time." With that, the sound of walking - the one I hardly noticed before - started again. The discussions in the back started again, and while I could only hear five voices I wasn't falling for that again. That meant all six of the horse-aliens were with Twilight and Applejack. As I got back on track and headed upstream, the voices continued - almost like they were getting closer. I could barely out run them, with my broken leg. And they were all trying to find me. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I had a lot of things to wonder about, least of which was where the river I was following would take me. Instead, I considered my reasoning for following it in the first place. I had six aliens following me, and I had no way to determine their intentions. Twilight was using curiosity as an argument, but I still remembered what she did to me the last time. Applejack was less likely to do any major harm, as she would probably keep her distance, but I remembered one of them saying she was the one to put the collar on. Why would she even have a metal collar that could fit tightly around my neck, I wondered. My imagination told me there wouldn't be any good reason for that. I had conflicted feelings, on the other hand, whether or not I should let them find me. After all, I considered, I was a curiosity to Twilight, enough that she would risk injury trying to find me. But, I considered, her 'magic' almost killed me. Contact with them would hurt me as well, and I didn't want to break another leg in a tangle with Rainbow Dash. It was getting dark, and Applejack had said she would only go out looking for that day. Based on their responses, most of the six would follow Applejack more eagerly than Twilight. Those facts meant that I could probably get away from them more easily then if they were a fully active search party. But, I began to think, what if the city they were heading towards (or so I thought) was the only one around? I knew that wouldn't be good in the long run, but the immediate issue was more worrying - I would have to cross paths with them, eventually. A meeting with the first aliens on Earth was a daunting task at the time - but they seemed to have a special interest in me, personally. And there must have been people in the nearby city, but what if they couldn't do anything about it? I decided then and there that, if no other options presented themselves, I would proceed to meet with them once I had an advantage. I would need to think of something big if I was to actually get that advantage, but - hey, I thought - my plan had gone well thus far. There wasn't anything I needed to worry about. I was still heading through the forest, up the mountain, well aware that the sun was starting to head down. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The forest became dark - blanketed in occlusion - and black clouds seemed to rise out of the ground, stopping me from passing. Glowing faces appeared on trees, things howled in the twilight, and the steady trickling of a river to my side was my only true guide, my only route away from the sound of creatures following me, close behind. I couldn't make anything out, at first glance, but I saw moving shapes constantly. I winced as I swatted at them with the stick-cane that was then required to support my left side. I was attacking gas with a tree branch. I tried to move along the river, but a presence was somewhere, bothering me in my peripheral vision. I kept turning around to check. The dark shapes moving about the trees and through the water wasn't the presence in itself; nor did I feel something in the way the shadows slid along next to me, clouding my vision of all but the coming darkness. Snakes of vines, clouds of leaves and pillars of bark laughed at me, mocking my quest to do - what, I asked. I forgot what I was even doing in the forest. Something important, that was it, close to... I couldn't remember at all. A metallic noise sounded behind me; the kind of sound that registers when a man picks up a machete and scrapes it on the ground. No, that wasn't it, I thought. A baseball bat hitting a pumpkin came to mind at the sound. Or, I wondered, was it the click of a lighter, the loading of a gun, a weapon resting in the palm of my hand, a betrayal that I would not forget for the life of me? I didn't remember betraying anyone at the time. "How ironic..." Whispered the wind through miles of foliage around me. I turned around, and pointed my stick-cane into the shadows. Clouds of pure black absorbed my cane for a split second, but the cut I made through it expanded and the mist retreated in a back wind. "You fail to understand..." Hissed the river, the grass, everything was speaking. Something was terribly wrong in that forest, that night, and I couldn't do anything about it other than wave a tree branch at fear itself, telling it to leave me alone. Finally, a figure replaced a tree and stared at me. It was the presence, I was sure, and I recognized it. In my corporeal realm, not it's dream world, it took a visible form, opting to represent something close to my image of the devil; it had animal legs, spiked claws, withered and asymmetrical wings, and distorted horns among a bald head. It was close, but it seemed to have the wrong parts attached. It tisked and shook its head. "You really don't know what you're doing, do you?" The voice echoed. I bristled at the statement, unaware of how deep the words were getting to me. "You're forgetting something. No, no, not your goal in the forest. That's actually pretty smart." He scratched his chin with a clawed, orange paw, then continued. "It's what you'll do about the... current situation. When you meet more of your people." I was fully listening at the mention of other people, despite the odd wording. He continued again, this time fixing me with a hard stare. "Will you let them die?" I sputtered, caught off guard by the question. "What? No!" "Ah, right, so you'll kill them yourself?" He was leaning in, and I was stuck in place. The words struck deeper still. My collar itched. "No. I won't let them die. I won't kill anyone." I paused in a moment of clear thought, a question forming. "Who are y-" "Oh, but you will. I can see it in your eye. You would trample your own grandmother if it meant you could-" The voice - that horrible voice that came from everything and everywhere and deep inside me and echoed with every memory I had ever had - stopped when my own began. I ordered it to stop putting me through this, and just like that my imagination turned off and I was only seeing a fallen tree with lots of debris and needles lying around. That damned voice, echoing around, through, and within me, stirring up dark memories and things I would have preferred to forget, forever, was stopped when I shouted. If I knew this was part of The Plan all along, I might have done things differently. I might have had a better reaction, I might have controlled myself better. But I didn't know. So I shouted the shadow apart. The darkness receded from the forest, and the shadow dissolved and seeped into the earth. I could feel the presence moving away, and I could finally think straight without the thing clouding my thoughts. Unaware of how long I was walking in the forest, I picked through my bag to find my watch, still trying to keep the weight off my leg, and checked the time. The hands read off as 23:48 hours, and I was about to put the watch on when I noticed something. The sun was still out, and the hands weren't moving. The watch was broken. I judged that it was mid-afternoon, forced myself to be satisfied with the accuracy of an educated guess, and continued up the stream. As I moved onwards, I reconnected with why on earth I was heading up a mountain; Aliens was why. I briefly reconsidered putting my broken watch on, but just stowed it in my bag instead. I didn't need more useless things wrapped around me. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - It was still dark, but lighter than it had been. I covered my ears for a brief moment, trying to clear up that annoying ringing that seemed to come up a lot that day. It was obvious, really, that I shouted; that was the source of my deafness. Once it was gone, I looked around at where I was. The ground had started to lose it's soft qualities of deep forestation, and the grass and low plant life was less abundant than it should have been. The trees, I noticed, were farther apart than usual, and there appeared to be a drop in forest density as I reached the source of the river. I picked right, it would have seemed, as the river was near a worn path that widened the further I went up the mountain. I asked myself, was the forest occupied? It was a stupid question because, just as it came into my mind, the damned horses were talking behind me. Far enough that I was sure they couldn't see me, but behind me nonetheless. Even if they hadn't kept track of me for hours, they would have been able to hear me from a mile away, back when I shouted at the dark thing. They were closing in. "Did you hear that?" Twilight's voice sounded first. "Yeah. Think that's it - what we're lookin' fer?" Applejack answered. "I don't know anything else that makes that sort of noise." "I'm not so sure about this..." Spoke another one of the voices from earlier, and that time I actually remembered it - Fluttershy. "What? We can't stop now, and you've stuck with us for far scarier things, like a-" "Shhhh... Listen." Somehow, I was compelled to follow Applejack's voice and listen, but I remembered, shortly thereafter, what they were supposed to be listening for. I was stepping noisily on gravel and rocks, and my stick-cane was slipping to lower stones every time I put my weight on it. The cover behind me was thinning, and something close to a clearing was up ahead, past several very large, very dead trees. I sped up on the pebble trail, trying to figure out a way that I could possibly get out of the situation. I considered that I could have made a beeline to the left or right of the river and lose them earlier, but then I might not have had a chance to get to high ground - without getting caught - and that, I thought, was a catch-22. Any choice would have left me to be caught, away from high ground and too tired to fight back. Then, I realized had another choice. The dead trees around the opening to the clearing - and access to high ground - were not much wider than I was, but if they all fell to the ground together the mass of branches would stop my pursuers from getting by - a sound plan as long as I got past them before they fell. The method was less sound - figuratively, of course. I only had one way to go about felling a patch of trees, and not only did I have no understanding of it, but I wasn't sure I would be able to use it. I was thinking, of course, of my voice-cannon. The one I had just used, but forgot about. It wasn't an accurate name but I found it fit well for what I intended to use it for. The only times I used it before then were accidental. The most recent time at the moment was accompanied by that dark figure, the one that I was sure was a product of heat stroke, fever dreams or some other illness that I probably didn't have, saying I didn't know what I was going to do, and that I was a killer. I was trying to get to civilization to warn potential victims, and, regardless if that succeeded, I would have to address the alien problem peacefully. If that figure had shown up soon afterwards I would have mentioned that to... him. I was running, then. I managed to convince myself I was actually angry at the mockery, rather than confused and scared, and I pushed the pain away with faked emotion. I didn't abandon use of my stick-cane, but that was only common sense. I ran across the gravel and passed the final forest threshold into the clearing and, as I did, I turned. The second most recent time I had yelled, there were no explosions. It was an anomaly, but surely it would work when I actually tried to shout with power, I hoped. I might have been wrong, I considered. To my right was the cluster of darkened, dead trees that I had intended to knock over, an act that was then within reach - both literally and figuratively. I then commenced the worst, most unprepared escape plan of all time. I shouted at a bunch of trees and hoped they would fall over. Lucky for me, it worked. Unlucky for me, I was thrown back a few dozen feet and landed in a bush near what looked like a wall. I concluded that putting all my weight on a stick moments before exhaling enough concussive energy to fell several trees was not a good idea at all. At that point, my leg burned like hell, but it was still intact and I had gotten practice at keeping pressure off of it from a several hour trek through the forest. I stood up unsteadily - from the shock of getting thrown across the clearing, by myself for God's sake - and tried to listen for the horses behind me. They moved on the gravel like I did, but they sounded like they were stopped - predictably - by the fallen trees. They argued, but a pressure in my head had clouded my hearing and my body temperature seemed to increase dramatically. Goddamn, I was exhausted. Searching, through narrowed vision, I looked around the clearing. More forest. More heat. The horse-aliens got louder, and I recognized the voices. I sighted in a full circle, and stopped, feeling cheated. It was just more forestry around me, and a wall, I thought. But there are no walls in forests. I looked back to the wall, and looked up. Lo and behold, from my low vantage in the bush, I was seeing a mountain. I repeated, in my mind, the concept of Not Giving Up once more, and grabbed onto the wall as high as I could reach. My hand moved down without finding purchase; I was too clouded and head-heavy to accurately grab a handhold, but by the third try I caught a deep crack in the rock and pulled down, hard. The world around me became a blur and I could barely keep myself upright. My hand fell out of the crack in the rock, suddenly too weak to pull at. I tried again, and that time I didn't even need to pull for my hand to fall. The arguing got louder, but a yell above them silenced all four, or six, or twenty-five billion of the murky, painful voices with a simple, drawled exclamation. "Ah'ma buck it outta the way!" It had said, shocking me back into competence. I remembered that the voice belonged to Applejack, the one reluctant to follow me. At that point, all my remaining energy was being poured towards grabbing my cane from the torn and snapped brush, making sure I had both feet planted wide on the ground no matter how much it hurt, and breathed in. Such was the sequence of events that I jumped and shouted at the ground just as a loud, unrelated crack echoed through the forest. The force coming up from my blast lifted me up faster than I could think, and wind hit my face. I peaked in my ascent, and came down a few meters. I landed in a heap, on the hard and painful rocks, and that was it for me. I didn't die, but my head was pressed to a cracking pressure and my body felt both numb and hot, and my leg felt like it was about to just snap off and the stupid collar that I still remembered was pressing on the back of my neck, rather painfully. The stone beneath me was pressing up, it seemed. I was getting heavier, my eyes closing. It wouldn't be long now, I thought. I didn't know, at the time, if the aliens had followed me that far, or if they even knew where I was. All I could tell was that my head was heavy with pain and an unrivalled exhaustion that stretched to my extremities, weighing them down. What I wouldn't do for a concussion check, I thought. Before I was out, I heard something. "Calm down, Applejack! You'll wake all of Ponyville from here!" "No, no... What they hay just happened?!" Gibberish is what I heard. Then, nothing. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "...sorry, Twi, but Ah guess it's gone fer good." "So we didn't find him, we can try again tomorrow, right?" "You can't go an' waste all yer time on that creature, especially by yourself." "Sending a letter to Princess Celestia is the first priority. She should be interested in him, and she could probably find him, too." "Actually... yeah, sounds good. Just don't overwork yourself over this, ya hear? We both know how bad that'll turn out." "Absolutely. I just wish Zecora could have helped us." "Yeah... what's with that? Ah swear she..." The voices faded in when I started to hear again, and by the time they were muffled by leaves I was staring at the darkened sky, holding myself in place on my cliff, trying not to look in the direction of the voices in the hopes that the horse-aliens wouldn't notice - it was baby logic. I got up and oriented myself when the last, quiet whispers of conversation disappeared into the forest. I was standing - no, crouching - on one of many levelled ridges of a mountain. The ground was mostly dirt and rocks, and the ridge wrapped around the rest of the rising mountain and lowered as it went around the curve. In one direction, where the setting sun and the parts of the forest I came from were to the right - I would call it 'south' - was a 50-foot drop into the clearing that I was almost caught in. I would have noticed more of what was immediately below me if I still had two good legs with which to support me as I leaned dangerously over the cliff. As it was, however, the general masked throbbing in my left leg had turned into a sharp, focused pain a few inches below my knee cap, as if someone cracked the bone from inside and turned it halfway around. Hell, I thought, that might as well have happened. Not caring to check what was actually going on under my pant leg at that point, I just adjusted my splint so it would hold up better after the damage it took. Unfortunately, I had no medical skills with which to get further than that, so I called it finished and moved on. Thinking, finally, back to the conversation the horse-aliens had held in the clearing below me, I realized how strange the situation really was and how much more these creatures were sounding like proper aliens. A Princess, Twilight had mentioned. They were going 'back' someplace, she had said. If I had any assumed knowledge on alien culture, it would be that they had either a Monarchy or an Autocracy; and it sounded like the aliens that were chasing me had the former. They were going back to their mother ship, I also assumed - not entirely seriously, but it was worth considering. Just as I was about to think more about how the ship wouldn't make any sense, based on any sort of rational thought, the situation dawned on me. The leader of an Alien race, or at least a planetary representative, had or was about to have a personal interest in finding and making contact with me. I thought of the appropriate adage to explain my feelings: Holy shit! I had time to think, but it's not like I could have lifted the sudden, crushing weight off of my shoulders. I was a personal interest of an Alien government power, and they planned on tracking me down, there in the forest. I couldn't decide if I was to be honoured or scared of that. To the west, the sun had passed behind the horizon, and it silhouetted shapes and peaks in front of a pink and orange palette. The shapes were not trees, however, they were too uniform to be trees. I squinted, trying to see past my near-sightedness, and caught the shape of a roof, a chimney, and light through some windows. I was looking at houses. I tried to stand up to get a better view, but winced in the pain and dropped to my knees again. The splint had done something to stop the constant pain, but there was still a distinct feeling that the bones in my leg were shifting again. Eventually, I propped myself up with my good right leg and my stick-cane - thankful I still had it - and peered over the tops of trees to the half-lit town. Forcing better focus out of my left eye, I could see not only pathways between individual buildings, but figures walking amongst them. The laughter that came on was hard to suppress, as I had suddenly learned that I spent most of the day moving in the opposite direction of where I wanted to go. It ended when I remembered that the aliens were moving in that direction, and were going to be between me and the town until they got 'back' to wherever they were going. I remembered the plan I devised beforehand, and searched the horizon - I was finally on high ground, a lookout point. Before long, a second settlement materialized out of shadow, also darkened in front of the sunset. It was perched precariously on the side of a mountain and looked like a castle. The only determinable path leading up to it went straight through the town that I could not reach at the moment. My plan had failed; I had nowhere to go. I really didn't want to take the option of waiting, but it was the only option. I could have gotten lost in the forest if it wasn't for the river, so damned if I was going to try to find a way out in a different direction; I had to sit there and wait until the aliens were no longer in my path. The morning was a good possibility. At that point, I turned to face the peak of the cliff, to my self-proclaimed north, and examined the rising mountain - which looked decent for a mountain, in the light. I saw a small opening, in the face, and drawing closer I saw that not only was it big enough for me but it opened up into a moderately sized cavern. Correction, I thought, I would sit and wait in a cave. I imagined it was going to be a terrible way to spend the night. That assumption was a gross understatement. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The last apple of four hit the soft ground. I carefully bent down to pick it up, and set it beside the first three in my pack. I was about to grab another branch of the apple tree and shake it when a bush rustled, peaking my attention. I stopped what I was doing and looked towards the shrub that moved. It was done shaking, but I swore I saw something other than leaves and branches inside it. I poked my stick-cane into it, but it just passed through. I remembered someone once describing the feeling of being watched, how it was like eyes were behind them. At that moment, I would have a better description: a cold, absent wave of darkness, silence, and stillness was all I could detect where I was not looking, or could not see. I stopped collecting apples and got the hell out of there. I knew the forest was a dangerous place. I was almost killed on two different occasions, back when both of my legs were fully functional. The simple fact that I was not prepared to almost die again outweighed any curiosity I held for whatever I thought was watching me, so I slung my pack over my shoulder, lifted my left side with my cane, and moved on back to the mountain ridge. Nothing jumped out at me from behind the various fallen trunks and large rocks as I exited the deeper forest, following another worn path that guided me back to the high ground. I somehow defeated the frights of the forest with more baby logic, but I retracted my thoughts after considering how demeaning that was to babies; they're smart enough to be scared. I, on the other hand, was almost - counter intuitively - begging for some night-time beastie to come out of the shadows and jump me just so I could use the crazy voice-power on it. It didn't happen, so I let out a non-destructive breath and plodded up the west side of the mountain ridge, back to my makeshift camp. If any camp could be called utterly pathetic, it was mine. There was a pile of unburnt lumber in a circle of rocks, where I might have started a fire if my glasses had actually focused into a point. I was blessed with myopia, the common eye condition that has basically no effect on anything other than extremely long distance. The only problem was that the prescriptions for it only dispersed light, or what little light was left when I tried to light the fire. I ate two of my apples, leaning against the northern face of the mountain, musing about my fire. If there were aliens after me, I thought, what good would a fire do? It would alert them to my location. I suddenly became aware that I had yet to find out where, exactly, I was. If the aliens would be so kind as to drop by in their spaceships and tell me that, I would have gladly wasted hours on that fire. I wasn't stupid, of course. The stars could have at least vaguely told me where I was, but the entire sky was blacked out by clouds in the coming night. I spent a half hour waiting for an opening, but it was simply not going to appear. I got slightly depressed when I took my with-me-for-no-reason watch out and saw the time was still stuck at 23:48. It was probably more accurate now than the first time I checked, I thought. It was good enough for me. The cave proved to be more than comfortable, but only in size. It was still rocks and gravel. Luckily, my with-me-for-no-reason sweater was enough to make the ground into a tolerable bed. I set down on it, and prepared to shut my eyes. My collar was still itching, but I got a lot of practice in ignoring it. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I nearly pissed myself when I heard the howl from the forest. It really wasn't something I should have worried about - the howl in my cave was too small for the manticore to get in - but I was scared anyway. I wondered; was it because I would have to brave the path back to the town tomorrow? Or, was it because the creature that was yelling probably had a grudge against me? It would remain a mystery. I didn't have the mental capabilities, on the edge of sleep, to think of how easily I had dispatched it the last time - though it would have been flawed to think that way, anyway. The night simply continued on its cycle, and I barely noticed as I fell asleep. There's a saying: "Ignorance Is Bliss". I suppose that's why I bother to remember any of this. [A/N] Sorry about the melodrama.